


The Cat and The Canary

by Redbone135



Category: The Boys (TV 2019)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:28:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbone135/pseuds/Redbone135
Summary: Frenchie and Kimiko move into their first apartment together and deal with settling into a different, calmer life together. Kind of domestic fluff, kind of past angsts.
Relationships: The Female | Kimiko Miyashiro/The Frenchman
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	The Cat and The Canary

The first time he brought her to the little studio apartment he had been so sure she would hate it. Had been positive that the four little walls, filled with very little furniture but still entirely too crowded, would feel like nothing but a cage to her – so far off the ground, yet so impossibly confined.

He had tried his hardest, in the few days between signing the lease and moving her in, to make it feel more comfortable for her – but now his attempts felt like false hope. An optimistic child, trying to please an impossible parent. He knew that feeling all too well and recognized the symptoms written across the walls in the rushed paint job and hastily hung paintings.

Frenchie had always liked his living arrangements dark and informal – a tomcat squatting in an alley before the next adventure called. When he had money he had sprung for expensive, dark furs – warm and feral draped across his bed. Dark metal like polished claws compromising most of his furniture. And when he didn’t have money, which was more often than not in the life of an impulsive gunrunner, he still hung cheap sheets over the windows like curtains, torn leather and broken wood furniture littered his apartments like scratching posts to sharpen his ever-present anxiety.

But Kimiko was different and so he had wanted this place to feel different. His old self would have found it pathetic, his attempts to please her like a cat trying to catch a high-flying avian beauty so far out of his reach. No, his old self would have reminded him to stick to the rats and spiders and other creepy-crawlers he knew he could catch. But his new self was willing to reevaluate things… for her.

And so he had painted the walls a sunny yellow, like the bright neons she loved in his own clothing – tracing the bright lines with curious fingertips, stealing his comfy yellow sweatshirt from the bottom of his duffle bag and sleeping in it every night. The walls were gold like the dollar-store jewelry she liked so much despite his offers to buy her better, like the little flecks of glitter in the nail polish she had snuck in with the rest of their groceries. He had opened the windows wide to let sunlight bounce off those golden walls, hanging light, lacy curtains and paintings of Perrault’s fairytales he had ripped from the pages of the storybooks she was learning to read and write French from and lovingly framed them with the precision only a chemist like Frenchie could master. He had looked for only the softest of down pillows, silky and comfortable blankets – all things that reminded him of her and the way she made him feel. But it was hard because the feeling was, quite frankly, new and a little foreign to him.

But she didn’t see any of it.

For the first hour – an entire eternity – she stood in the window, face bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun and just stared out across the city.

This is it, he thought, hovering awkwardly behind her in the doorway. She is going to leave. She is more than I could ever be, and she will leave me. He knew this to be true, because before he met Kimiko that is exactly what he would have done, like a stray flitting from one life to the next – a cage like this must be stifling to someone with as much potential as Kimiko.

But instead she turned to him, smiling as her fingers formed words only he can understand.

“ _It is like we are birds_ ,” she signs, beckoning him over to her. He wraps one arm carefully around her shoulder, leaving her hands free to sign.

“ _It is like we are birds, and we are finally free of that underground cage. It is like we are flying._ ”

And Frenchie didn’t know what flying felt like – liked to keep his paws on the ground and his head down to avoid trouble – but this felt new and so he trusted her. This must be what flying felt like.

***

The first few weeks were not without their hiccups. The first being the matter of their sleeping arrangements.

Kimiko didn’t like to be touched – and it didn’t take a genius chemist to figure out why. Kidnapped at such a young age, experimented on in brutal and unspeakably painful ways, housed in a cage in the horrific basement of a terrorist cell… The best case scenario was still pretty grim.

But Frenchie was no stranger to a childhood of terror himself – had gone the opposite direction in coping with his traumas of touch. While Kimiko pushed away from the idea, he had sought it out like a catnip – as if each caress from a stranger could replace one of the burns from his father. As if physical intimacy could erase the scars left there by betrayed trust.

So he didn’t completely understand her, but he got the gist. And for someone so unbreakably amazing – and a slight fear for his own safety if he were to disobey her wishes – he would do his best to be accommodating. And it wasn’t like there wasn’t hope… Kimiko didn’t much like the idea of him with other women. They had made a pact early on: he would stop seeing Cherie for his unseemly outlet if she did as well. So though 'celibate' had always sounded like a dirty word to him, though ‘male urges’ and a bit of entitlement to the bed in the apartment he paid for was still there, he set up his pillow and blanket on the couch and they went about turning their month-by-month lease into a home – another word that had always felt a little bit strange and out-of-reach to Frenchie. Home was a place to be wanted – and so he wasn’t sure what to do with it now that he had it. The idea was absurd.

But absurd slowly faded to surreal, then to – dare he say it – comfortable. Like a cat and a canary, their relationship was not expected, but all the more meaningful for the differences they had overcome.

Besides the difference of opinion on their sleeping arrangements, there were other things they discovered throughout the days that neither had ever had to compromise on before, but were all too willing to now.

For starters, Kimiko didn’t have much patience for cooking – particularly none of the complicated and decadent French dishes that he made, but loved being in the kitchen with Frenchie. Frenchie, for his part hated to cook alone but was not used to his sous-chefs being quite so flippant with him – not since his mother, at least. Kimiko would sit on the counter and dip her fingers into half-finished sauces, grinning cheekily as he jokingly pulled the pan away. When he would correct her technique, he would lean in close enough to feel her hair tickle his throat like soft feathers, careful always to keep space between them as he took her hands in his the same way she taught him to form some of the more difficult signs. But her patience with it always ran out quickly - always - and instead of learning, she would smear the batter across his nose, toss flour over his apron, laugh and squirm and not listen at all. And he loved that laughter – like a bird singing him awake from the dark – because it was the only noise she made.

He often wondered, if she could make _other_ noises, if _he_ could make her make _other_ noises, but those were frustrating thoughts – ones that made him want to argue and sulk and resent her. And he never, more than anything, wanted to resent her – his canary, son coeur – a shining sun in a life that had previously only contained stars.

And so he left those thoughts in the shower, in his dreams, in places where she couldn’t find them – folding up his blanket and pillow every morning so that they could use the couch to watch their shows.

Another difference.

Frenchie loved old reruns – Golden Girls, I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H – they were a familiar comfort to him, first watched on old hotel TVs in his childhood, a security blanket left over from his days as a harmless kitten being dragged around and living in fear of a bigger, wilder tomcat.

But he didn’t need that comfort anymore, and so he often let Kimiko pick their shows. A lover of nature documentaries, she would stare at the screen with eyes half-wild, watching the animals like a bird of prey, as if she recognized she was only half human herself. What is this wild thing I have fallen in love with, he would think to himself, but then she would set her feet in his lap, lacing their fingers together in comfortable silence and he would concede she was only _half_ -wild – and he was half wild himself.

They would go dancing often in the evenings – to clubs where live brass bands played and he would spin her across the floor in a flurry of fun and familiarity – to underground raves where she would refuse his drugs but dance unrestrained like she was on them anyway – to soft records played across their apartment where she would rock and sway and allow him closer to her than ever before.

But it was always fleeting – he would return to his couch, she her bed, and drift off to dreams of what the future might hold. Of when he might hold her.

But sometimes of what the past held as well, digging claws in so tightly that neither one could let go of those awful memories. Of a bipolar father and that dreaded, murderous duvet. Of a dead brother who saved mice but couldn’t save himself. Always waking up in a cold, silent sweat so as not to disturb the other. But the other always knew – when Kimiko spent the day folding origami cranes, Frenchie knew – and when Kimiko woke up to a five course breakfast already prepared and his mother’s records playing in the living room, well, Kimiko knew too.

But they pretended not to. Frenchie as proud and independent as a cat – laying his bad moods at her feet like an offering of intimacy. Kimiko as frightened as a bird – flying away from those memories, migrating to a life spent with Frenchie where she didn’t have to think about those things.

Until one night everything changed.

It was such a small thing, but to him… it was the world. He was awoken from a fretful sleep to a heavy, warm weight on his shoulder, like a bird perched gently for flight.

“Kimiko?” he whispered, half dazed as he shifted his weight, letting her settle into the space between his side and the back of the couch, her arms folded like protective wings to her chest – those nimble, feather-fast hands close enough to his face that he could still see their shape in the dark.

“ _I had a bad dream_ ,” she signed. “ _My brother._ ”

He brought his own hands up, wanting nothing more than to brush the hair away from her face and press his lips less than gently to hers, but instead he used his fingers to form the signs for, “ _Want to talk_?”

He felt her response more than saw it, the shake of her head, the moment of vulnerability and rustling cloth rare and palpable. For once, he is the strong one again. It is strange, but he doesn’t like the weight that comes with that responsibility. He much prefers her when she is thriving – not in need of his saving.

He fumbles again with his hands, like clumsy paws, wanting to form signs but unable to see them clearly in the dark, unable to form them without disturbing her.

He whispers instead, “Want me to come to bed with you, mon coeur?”

A nod yes. A soft bed. Not much sleep.

She snuggles into his side and drifts off quickly enough, but he lays awake, staring silently at the ceiling, feeling his heart explode out of his chest.

***

Fuck it, he thinks to himself the next night. He hates having to work up the courage to sleep in his own bed uninvited - half expecting to be castrated for the attempt – but, oh well, it is not like he is using them much for anything anyway.

He watches her stir gently under the covers, still wrapped in his canary yellow sweatshirt.

“I’m sleeping here tonight,” he answers her question before she has a chance to ask it.

She shrugs, as if she hadn’t really given it any thought. Of course he was sleeping here tonight.

“Well, okay,” he says contemplatively back – having expected more of a fight. “No questions? Okay, then. Bonne nuit, mon coeur.”

But before he can get settled, her fingers are tugging at his t-shirt, pulling his attention back to her before her hands begin to move with eager speed. It would appear that she did have questions.

“ _Why have you not tried to kiss me again?_ ” she asks – her sign language as blunt as her curious expression.

“I almost died last time,” he laughs – his lips moving along with his hands. He laughs it off as if he hasn’t given it any thought. As if the memory doesn’t bring back the sharp sting of rejection – the dizzy humming memory of coke-fueled courage, he had only been trying to make her feel better the only way he knew how – the only way he had ever felt better, no matter how temporary. He could still feel the panic pooling with his breath as he groveled like a mewling kitten, her fingers digging into his throat and drawing out the fear that was always there, just below the surface. It had been the fear that had swallowed a couple bottles of vodka and pushed him to Cherie’s house that night – and he didn’t want to go back. Didn’t trust himself not to go back if he was rejected again.

“Why haven’t I kissed you?” he continues, keeping his tone forcefully light. “Because I’d like to live to see tomorrow.”

She raises her eyebrows – insistent. She is not looking for jokes. And she is not going to hurt him. They both know both of those things.

“Kimiko,” he says, trying out sincerity that always sounded just a little better wrapped around her name. “I… How can I kiss you from the couch?”

“ _Why are you on the couch?_ ” she signs back – her expression seeming to mock him. As if he probably should have thought of this before.

He shrugs – feeling in need of something to calm his nerves but knowing now wasn’t the time to be reaching for a pill bottle.

She shakes her head at his lack of answer and begins to sign again. “ _It is not like we have not slept together before._ ”

She uses the sing for “sleep” and he is suddenly filled with wonder – does that word have a double meaning in her language as well, or will he one day need to learn a new sign for…

He shakes his head, trying to keep himself in the present.

“That is different, mon coeur. Huddled together in a gang’s basement. Sleeping fitfully while we wait for someone to bust through the door and end both our lives. That was sleep… for survival, for … it was different.” His hands are moving slowly to match the uncertainty in his voice, though her eyes are glued to his face and so he knows he doesn’t need to keep up the movements.

 _“Different how?”_ she presses, her hands moving without her eyes leaving his. He feels uncomfortable breaking the gaze to look down at her hands – more so because he can only answer her with a shrug.

He can think of all sorts of things that this is not, but when she sets her jaw, her eyes demanding to know, he can’t think of what this _is_.

“I don’t know,” he says with a huff. “It is… softer… like a cat… without its claws… or a small bird you could easily crush in your hand if you are not careful…”

She grins now, making a sign with her hand. She has never made that sign before.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, his hands falling flat in his lap on the comforter. Once again her language has left him behind and he is left with nothing but his voice. “I don’t know that word.”

The way she furrows her brow tells him that he does, but she is patient for once – reaches across to the notepads stacked on the nightstand, filled to the brim with Frenchie’s half scribbled recipes… of both the culinary and the criminal kind.

She scribbles a word frantically spinning it around for him to see. Her letters are large and uneven – her spelling all wrong – but he knows what she is trying to say.

“ _Domestic,_ ” he signs back, thinking about all that word entails. “Did you just make that one up?”

She punches his shoulder lightly as he leans back into the pillows, dragging her with him.

Domestic.

He thinks about the word. A real problem of a word.

Domestic – like a cat with no claws, no longer able to hunt for itself. Like a bird in a cage, to be owned on a whim.

Domestic. Dependent.

His old anxieties tell him it is a word he should lie awake in fear of. But there is something buried even deeper inside him – something from before his father’s disease took over their lives. Something he has been trying to get back to from the moment he left it.

Domestic. Devoted.

Soon he is thinking of warm fuzzy kittens, of chirping happy music, of a golden ring of a collar with a bell that matches her canary-cheerful laugh. It is a nice thought, a happy thought, a thought to drift off to sleep to. And it is not long before he is dreaming, a deep snore rumbling out of his chest.

And Kimiko thinks, as she curls a little deeper into his side, it sounds a little like happy purring.


End file.
